‘City Builder’ Platinum Edition Update #51: Print Files Accepted!
In the Footsteps of Hercules is an 86-page system-free sourcebook devoted to a pilgrimage trail that can be used in conjunction with any fantasy role-playing game. This book describes the various sections of the trail and the prevailing terrain and conditions associated with them; how most pilgrims travel them; alternate ways some pilgrims choose to approach the trail overall or specific parts of it; the things they generally hope to accomplish along the way; and things they might encounter on it.
There are many ways this book can be used and enjoyed. One is to simply read it as a work of fantasy fiction inspired by the myths, legends, history, and geography of Greece. Another is to use it as inspiration or a model for pilgrimage trails in your own stories or role-playing game campaigns. Yet another is as a setting for roleplaying game adventures of various sorts.
In the Footsteps of Hercules is a fully-supported product and we have been developing a wide variety of support material for it, to include D&D 5E game content, fiction, and actual-play game sessions. We have created at d-Infinity Online game magazine a special In the Footsteps of Hercules Bonus Content page with links to all of this material and will regularly update it, so keep an eye on it for new additions.
This book was created as a specific example of a Pilgrimage Trail, one of the 85 general sorts of places that appear in Skirmisher Publishing's bestselling City Builder: A Guide to Designing Communities. As written, this trail is dedicated to the titular demigod and is set in a Dark Ages fantasy version of the Peloponnesian Peninsula of Greece and located within the company’s Swords of Kos Fantasy Campaign Setting. It can easily, however, be dedicated to any other appropriate deity or cause and dropped into virtually any other existing milieu and has deliberately been designed to be compatible with any of what Gary Gygax used to refer to as “a traditional fantasy campaign setting.”
City Builder: A Guide to Designing Communities is a rules-free universal sourcebook specifically designed to help guide storytellers through the process of creating exciting and compelling urban areas and other sorts of communities and places within them for their projects. It is not specific to any particular game system or setting and is intended to be compatible with almost any ancient, Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Renaissance, fantasy, or other role-playing milieu.
Seen here is fantasy artist Amanda Kahl’s initial sketch of a cover image for the In the Footstep of Hercules companion book.
We are glad to see that so many people have been enjoying the complete Platinum Edition of City Builder: A Guide to Designing Communities since we released the full PDF version of it last month! We also appreciate the positive comments in response to the updated PDF files for it that we released a couple of weeks ago, which included us enabling the Layers feature and providing a reduced-size version of the book. We have, in the meantime, been staying busy at our end and wanted to update you on the latest news related to this project.
* DriveThruRPG/OneBookShelf has accepted the files we submitted to them for a print edition of City Builder! They will be sending us a physical proof of the book to review and, if there are no issues with it that we need to address, we will immediately make the print edition of the book available and send backers who will be receiving it instructions on how to obtain it. We will keep you posted.
++ We initially planned to provide this book with the “standard color” option offered by DriveThruRPG/OneBookShelf but, in response to customer requests, will now also be providing it in “premium color.” So, depending on their preferences, backers will now be able to obtain either or even both versions of the book.
* City Builder author Michael O. Varhola has just finished writing the base entry for the In the Footsteps of Hercules bonus companion book to City Builder that backers will be receiving! This writeup is a detailed, 10,000-word treatment of a Pilgrimage Trail, one of the new sorts of places that appears in the Platinum Edition of City Builder, and as soon our artists finish a cover illustration and regional map for it we will release and make it available to backers. We will then update the files for it as we complete and add the dozen other specific places and the maps and images associated with them, and customers who obtain the initial version of the book will automatically receive the updated files associated with it.
Thanks! We very much hope you are enjoying City Builder and are getting the most out of all the hard work we have put into it, and know you will love In the Footsteps of Hercules. We would love to hear about things in it you particularly like or have found to be especially useful and how you are drawing upon it in the creation of your settings, scenarios, and places.